Why do the board members of regional chapters of the Ladies’s Jewellery Affiliation (WJA) preserve resigning in protest, and what are they objecting to? Let’s talk about.
In case you’re additionally on jewellery social media, you may need witnessed the current avalanche of resignations from the Ladies’s Jewellery Affiliation (WJA). The rationale behind the motion is necessary, and we’re going to try the information of the scenario right now.
This isn’t my standard form of publish: there received’t be any photos of bijou, and for those who determine to skip it, that’s okay. However for those who’re within the jewellery business, please contemplate no less than studying the “what occurred” part so what’s occurring.
This text is written from publicly out there data, since I’m not a WJA member.
What’s the Ladies’s Jewellery Affiliation?
Based within the 1980’s, the Ladies’s Jewellery Affiliation (WJA) is knowledgeable group for girls within the jewellery and watch industries. In line with their web site, the WJA defines its mission as follows:
To help ladies within the jewellery and watch industries’ development and skilled improvement via networking, training, management improvement, and the availability of member companies and to be the premier enterprise networking and community-building group devoted to enriching and advancing the skilled lives of ladies within the jewellery and watch industries.”
Since its founding, the WJA has seen huge development, spreading throughout the nation with the launch of particular person chapters in several cities in addition to creating mentorship applications, WJA Masterclasses, Jewellery’s Night time Out, the WJA Awards for Excellence, and the WJA Jewellery Loupe Mission for rising designers.
I’ve at all times admired the WJA and believed in its mission. I used to be a member for a number of years, and I’ve been a featured speaker at occasions for the Philadelphia Chapter and the DC, Maryland, & Virginia WJA Chapter and in addition attended the WJA Awards for Excellence Gala previously.
What occurred?
Throughout the December tenth, 2024 Annual Membership Assembly, WJA President-Elect Gabrielle Grazi made an end-of-year speech that introduced a shift in priorities for WJA.
You’ll be able to learn the whole speech at this hyperlink, however right here is the related part:
We exist to assist ladies thrive and we satisfaction ourselves on constructing a tradition of inclusion and belonging.
In our efforts to help DEI and spotlight underrepresented communities in our business, it was lately delivered to our consideration and I want to acknowledge right here, right now, the various in our business who’ve felt excluded the previous few years.
In hindsight, our content material didn’t at all times mirror the complexion of our membership and that of our broader business. Our honest efforts to be inclusive created a notion of exclusion by many lengthy standing and founding members of the jewellery neighborhood.
We sincerely apologize for this misstep. Everyone seems to be welcome in our neighborhood. Each particular person is various.
As a ladies’s enterprise group with a 501 c6 designation, we will likely be targeted on variety of thought, and never remark or create content material round social justice points.”
I didn’t witness this firsthand as a result of I’m not a WJA member anymore, however it solely took a few days for murmurings of discontent to achieve me.
Then the resignations started.
On January 14, 2025, the whole WJA Chicago board resigned in protest and shared an open letter on the @WJAChicago Instagram account giving their causes.
You’ll be able to learn the open letter above, however here’s a spotlight:
As a various board composed of ladies from varied cultures, creeds, races, and nationalities, we have been deeply disheartened by [Grazi’s] assertion and the implications they carry for our group’s future.
The assertion that WJA’s “honest efforts to be inclusive created a notion of exclusion” misrepresents the aim and values of this group. […]
The dedication to keep away from “creating content material round social justice points sooner or later” contradicts the very basis of WJA. Because the WJA web site highlights, founders Toni Lyn Judd and Cindy Geller created this group to offer ladies a voice within the jewellery business the place there beforehand was none. That founding precept is inherently tied to social justice.”
The Chicago board resignation sparked conversations everywhere in the business. The WJA NorCal (Northern California) board quickly adopted go well with, with their mass resignation introduced on particular person member accounts:
The NorCal board made one closing publish on their Chapter’s Instagram earlier than their mass resignation: they shared a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. concerning the significance of sustaining hope within the face of worthwhile wrestle.
As of January 27, 2025, the board of the San Diego WJA chapter has additionally resigned. From the @WJASanDeigo Instagram story:
The choice by the 2025 Nationwide Board to retain Gabrielle Grazi as President of WJA Nationwide after sowing unpreceded division inside our membership and instigating dozens of resignations from our native and Nationwide management following her December tenth assertion at our Annual Management Assembly has left us unable to successfully help our neighborhood members via this affiliation right now.”
Former San Diego board member Ashley McGinty of Chouette Designs additionally posted an eloquent assertion on her model’s Instagram additional explaining her personal objections to the WJA speech (beneath).
Addendum, January 29, 2025, 6:30 pm: each the WJA Miami and WJA Seattle boards introduced hours after this text was revealed that they’re all resigning as properly. This brings the overall of regional chapter boards which have resigned as much as 5.
I’ve added each of their open letters within the slideshow beneath:
Why it issues
Like america as a complete, the jewellery business stands at a crossroads: will we rise up for our neighborhood and work to create a secure, welcoming, inclusive place that fosters the attractive variety that makes each our nation and our business really nice or we are going to fold below the pressures of prejudice and give up the struggle to make our nook of the world a greater place simply to maintain just a few fearful individuals snug?
(Sure, we’ve reached the a part of the article the place I cease attempting to sound unbiased.)
Whether or not this shift in coverage is coming from people throughout the WJA who’re attempting to claim their very own beliefs on the group or if it’s a deliberate try and align the WJA extra carefully with the inflexible, right-wing beliefs of the USA’s new presidential administration, I have no idea. However I strongly agree with the Chicago WJA’s open letter once they say that this shift in precedence feels contradictory to the very existence of the WJA.
The WJA’s core mission, its acknowledged purpose for current, is to “help ladies within the jewellery and watch industries’ development and skilled improvement via networking, training, management improvement, and the availability of member companies.”
The December tenth speech calls the WJA’s previous efforts to “help DEI and spotlight underrepresented communities in our business” a “misstep” and states that the WJA won’t “not remark or create content material round social justice points” transferring ahead.
The WJA was based as a result of ladies are an underrepresented neighborhood within the jewellery business! The group has tied itself right into a knot the place its personal president opposes the WJA’s very purpose for current.
As if that weren’t unhealthy sufficient, Grazi’s assertion’s about opposing DEI efforts and not commenting on social justice points hamstrings the WJA’s potential to help members who’re dealing with challenges linked to the truth that they themselves could also be a part of an underrepresented neighborhood.
If the WJA received’t help members dealing with challenges linked to their standing as a part of an underrepresented neighborhood, they’ve successfully introduced that they’re solely involved with issues that have an effect on straight white ladies – particularly, straight white ladies who haven’t any disabilities and face no different discrimination of any variety.
How has WJA responded?
The WJA Chicago open letter mentions that WJA Nationwide employees “acknowledged that the remarks in query have been to deal with a few of Jewish members of WJA’s dissatisfaction with the nationwide board’s lack of response to the occasions of October seventh and the present Israeli-Palestinian battle.”
Whereas I’d imagine {that a} fear-based need to keep away from the query of methods to publicly handle the Israeli-Palestinian battle partly impressed the brand new coverage in opposition to social justice content material, the concept this identical concern justifies the anti-DEI stance merely is senseless.
In line with a JCK article concerning the debacle, the WJA has made a number of inside makes an attempt to pacify this case: a name between Grazi and the chapter leaders (who then resigned en masse), an announcement from Grazi saying her remarks have been misunderstood, and a membership electronic mail insisting that Grazi’s feedback have been “hers and hers alone.”
The disavowal can be extra convincing if Gabrielle Grazi hadn’t been elevated from President-Elect to energetic President of the WJA since her December tenth speech.
The membership electronic mail additionally apparently doubled down on the WJA’s new anti-social justice stance, saying “[Grazi] doesn’t really feel as if WJA ought to be making statements or social-media posts about exterior cultural, political, or social points that don’t immediately impression our group’s mission.”
None of those efforts have stemmed the tide of resignations or offered any rationalization to the general public, leaving the business as a complete with no alternative however to take Grazi’s remarks at face worth and assume that they signify the WJA’s true priorities.
I’ve stated Gabrielle Grazi’s title loads, however I don’t imply to vilify her or place all of the duty on her shoulders: she gave a foul speech, however she is just one individual. The WJA is an enormous group with a 40+ yr historical past and it’s their collective duty to answer this case appropriately.
I’m truthfully baffled by the WJA’s continued refusal to make any public assertion about all of this. Does the WJA really not perceive how far Grazi’s phrases have reached, or how damage and offended individuals are? With their silence, they’re basically cosigning the anti-DEI, anti-social justice Dec tenth speech as consultant of the group’s priorities.
![I have been a member of the Women's Jewelry Association since 2013, and served on the National Board from 2019 until 2024 when asked, because I believe wholeheartedly in the organization's mission to serve and support women (anyone who identifies) to be more equal participants in this industry. I am proud of the educational work and advocacy work done by the organization over the years, much of it at the hard-working Chapter level, and some of my most treasured connections in the industry have come from events and interactions in the past 13 years I have been involved. I am most proud of the work alongside a few dedicated colleagues on a Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Committee, first in 2020-21 and then again in 2024, that advanced efforts directly related to the Board's mission. It is important that the current [WJA] Board realizes that recent comments by the incoming President are divisive for many members and Chapter leaders, and not in keeping with WJA's mission. We do not have to "other" one group who needs support to amplify another. In order for the WJA to survive, the Board needs to act immediately--and with accountability and empathy--to address the harm done by these statements. I hope that this organization can continue on the path begun 40+ years ago that so many have believed in and worked towards. With love and hope, Monica](https://cdn-ilccabh.nitrocdn.com/QfjUFzPdODCOudwAcCJthytYSTNUdFhV/assets/images/optimized/rev-74ecfd9/i0.wp.com/diamondsinthelibrary.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/10c8a4eab783a7a46ebb0a5509d2c226.Monica-Stephenson-Instagram-Story-statement.png)
What subsequent?
At this level, I believe it might take an especially decisive public assertion coupled with substantive motion for WJA management to have any probability of regaining the religion and goodwill of the general public and stem the tide of resignations.
In a January 22, 2025 Instagram story (above), former WJA board member Monica Stephenson made the next assertion:
It is crucial that the present [WJA] Board realizes that current feedback by the incoming President are divisive for a lot of members and Chapter leaders, and never consistent with WJA’s mission. We do not need to “different” one group who wants help to amplify one other.
To ensure that the WJA to outlive, the Board must act instantly—and with accountability and empathy—to deal with the hurt carried out by these statements. I hope that this group can proceed on the trail begun 40+ years in the past that so many have believed in and labored in direction of.”
WJA has solely begun to really feel the consequences of this debacle: I’ve had many conversations with members who haven’t resigned, however are planning to let their WJA memberships expire later this yr.
I need to emphasize once more that I’m not a WJA member – I’ve no connection to the group. The truth that buddies, acquaintances, and strangers have approached me to debate these occasions and ask for recommendation or readability on this case exhibits how badly individuals are aching for an precise rationalization from the WJA.
I’ve the utmost respect for each WJA member who has resigned in protest or spoken up publicly about these occasions. Their actions (and a DM from one explicit involved WJA member) are what impressed me to rearrange my week to write down this text.
Such bravery deserves to be documented, and the truth that there are such a lot of individuals keen to face up for inclusivity and social justice provides me hope for our business, even when the WJA as a corporation has determined it’s not eager about altering for the higher.
A number of of the WJA Chapter board resignation statements talked about the need to to construct neighborhood and help one another in new methods (Like San Diego, above). If the WJA refuses take the mandatory steps to show issues round, I’m very to see what new, higher group can emerge from its ashes.
I need to hear what you suppose, my darlings. Have you ever ever been a WJA member? How do you’re feeling about this shift within the group’s priorities? I’d love to begin a dialog.
In case you or somebody is engaged on a brand new group to assist fill the void the the WJA’s undesirable transformation has left behind, please let me know! I’d love to listen to about it.
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